According to the spokesperson for Iran’s judiciary, compensation for damages that will be awarded to men, women, Muslim and non-Muslim as a consequence of road accidents in Iran shall be alike, adding that this equality principle is not against the Sharia, i.e. Islamic law.
The spokesperson justified this new policy by saying that since compensation is paid according to a contract between insurance companies and the insurers, and since each insurer whether man, woman, Muslim or non-Muslim pay the same amount of premium, the compensation reimbursements will be equal as well.
One conclusion from this policy is that the Islamic Republic of Iran may have come to the conclusion that the legal differences between men, women, Muslims and non-Muslims are not inherent but because of contractual definitions, and so they can be negated according to circumstances and give way to equal treatment of these groups. In this instance, it is the contract of the insurance company that negates the inequality between sexes and religions. But since judicial rules in the country do discriminate and set different standards and consequences for these groups, the question that comes to mind is this: what is the source of the difference between judicial rules and insurance contacts? One explanation may be that insurance is a modern industry and is based on the contract which is voluntarily reached when the two sides accept its terms with full knowledge of a specific need that they each have, and fulfill it till its term. The value and performance of this contract is defined on the basis of the needs of the insurer and insurance provider, while no gender, religious or moral considerations enter the arrangement.
Can the same standard be applied to society? In other words can one argue that because human beings enter into social, economic and cultural relations based on their interdependence they posses equal rights and responsibilities in advancing and fulfilling these relations. Participation in the relations and exchanges of this network is communal which ensures the equality in the rights of all the participants.
But why is it that what an insurance company can fulfill regarding gender and religious equality government cannot? Why is the value of a woman who is murdered by a criminal less than that of a woman killed in a car accident?
The others aspect of this new policy is the importance that is attributed to a contract. However, in the past too the Islamic Republic had accepted that in some areas such as the right to divorce, alimony, permission to travel and child custody Sharia rules could be changed through contract law. For example, while according to Sharia, the right to divorce or selecting a place to live belonged to man, government had accepted that through a bilateral contract a man and a woman could agree whether a woman too would have the right to divorce or the right to choose the place of dwelling for the couple.
So how is it that the government has accepted that an agreement between two individuals enjoys the backing of the law, thus allowing for laws to be reviewed and modified because of this, but the very same government cannot accept an agreement between the citizen and the state (through resort to such tools as public opinion) to review Sharia laws? Has a woman who has affirmed her right to divorce through a marriage contract committed a crime according to Sharia? If not, then why are women activists who are calling for equality before the law for all women accused of acting against national security? So equality in a bilateral contract acceptable while in the framework of a law it is not?
While revealing a contradiction in the government’s legal interpretation, its recognition of the meaning of a contract also demonstrates that you cannot recognize a modern institution (such as insurance) while negating the laws and standards that rule over it. Accepting modern arrangements and modifying traditional standards is a gradual, and step-by-step effort for those advocate gradual reforms. The recognition of equality in compensation for women and men, between Muslims and non-Muslims in traffic accidents may be viewed as one such step forward.
While an advance, thee is also an irony in this story which is that there must a women, a non-Muslim, an insurance company, an accident and possibly a loss of life involved for the rights of a woman to equal that of a man or a non-Muslim to equal that of a Muslim!
